Posts Tagged ‘Piracy’

The cyber cell of Mumbai crime branch has launched an investigation into a piracy complaint registered by the director and producer of Marathi blockbuster movie Dr Prakash Amte, The Real Hero. The filmmaker, Samruddhi Porey, has alleged that the entire […]

For more information go to http://www.NationalCyberSecurity.com, http://www. GregoryDEvans.com, http://www.LocatePC.net or http://AmIHackerProof.com

A study involving thousands of French internet users has found that the country’s “three strikes” anti-piracy policies don’t actually curb piracy. Researchers from the universities of Delaware and Rennes looking into the impact of France’s Hadopi law — which threatened to cut off internet access for users found to have infringed copyright three times — have found […]

Top Priority Sector: maritime_port_security Sea piracy has reached its lowest level in six years, with 264 attacks recorded worldwide in 2013, a 40 percent decrease from 2011, according to the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce

A day after thousands of websites went on strike protesting controversial anti-piracy legislation in the US, federal authorities today announced they have busted a service allegedly supporting piracy that hauled in an estimated $175 million (£113 million).

Seven individuals and two companies were charged with multiple counts of racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering, the US Department of Justice said.

The two companies, Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited, operated sites under the Megaupload name, including megaupload.com from servers located in the US, Canada and the Netherlands.

According to federal officials, the gang generated $175 million in revenue from advertising sales and premium memberships, and caused more than $500 million (£320 million) in damages to the legitimate copyright holders.

Among the pirated content the Megaupload sites distributed were movies, television programs, music, ebooks and business and entertainment software.

“This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States,” the DOJ said. Prosecutors also called the Megaupload group “an international organised criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy”.

Of the seven men indicted by a Virginia grand jury earlier this month, four were arrested today in New Zealand by local authorities. The three others, who live in Estonia, Germany and Slovakia, remain at large.

Alongside today’s arrests, the FBI also seized $50 million in Megaupload assets, and served 20 search warrants in the US and elsewhere to grab the servers used by the websites. The court also ordered the seizure of 18 domain names belonging to Megaupload.

According to the grand jury’s indictment, Megaupload.com was seeing 50 million visitors daily and accounted for 4% of all Internet traffic.

The Alexa site ranking service currently lists the site as the seventy-second-largest in the world. Over the last three months, the site’s visitors averaged 1.4% of all Internet users.

Today’s arrests followed on the heels of a widespread “Internet strike” Wednesday, when thousands of sites, including Google and Wikipedia, went partially or completely dark in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Those bills are designed to make it easier for copyright holders to take down foreign websites that distribute pirated movies, music and software. Opponents, however, have argued that the legislation will give content owners too much power.

The seven men each face a maximum of 55 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Controversial online copyright enforcement bill the Stop Online Piracy Act may be stalled in the US House of Representatives as lawmakers try to iron out a compromise, an opponent of the legislation said.

Representative Darrell Issa said he’s been assured by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that SOPA will not move forward unless consensus is reached.

“Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote,” Issa said. “The voice of the Internet community has been heard. Much more education for Members of Congress about the workings of the Internet is essential if anti-piracy legislation is to be workable and achieve broad appeal.”

A spokeswoman for Cantor declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Representative Lamar Smith, chief sponsor of SOPA, said she does not believe Cantor has made a public comment about delaying SOPA.

Issa also announced that a Wednesday hearing on SOPA’s impact on cybersecurity has been postponed, following a decision by Smith to take out a provision affecting the domain name system. Smith announced Friday that he would take out a portion of SOPA that would allow the US Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring US Internet service providers to block subscriber access to foreign websites accused of infringing copyright.

The US Senate is scheduled to begin voting on a similar bill, the Protect IP Act, on January 24.

“Although SOPA, despite the removal of this provision, is still a fundamentally flawed bill, I have decided that postponing the scheduled hearing on DNS blocking with technical experts is the best course of action at this time,” said Issa, who is pushing for an alternate bill, called the OPEN Act. “Right now, the focus of protecting the Internet needs to be on the Senate where Majority Leader Reid has announced his intention to try to move similar legislation in less than two weeks.”

Also on Friday, three officials in President Barack Obama’s administration issued an inconclusive statement on SOPA after two online petitions called on the president to veto the bill.

The White House statement called on “all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond US borders”. The statement was signed by Victoria Espinel, the White House enforcement coordinator, Aneesh Chopra, the US federal CTO, and Howard Schmidt, the cybersecurity coordinator for the Obama administration.

But the statement called for legislation that does not create new cybersecurity risks or limit freedom of expression. “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small,” the White House said.

The statement did not directly say whether the White House opposes SOPA or PIPA.

Critics of SOPA say it would create cybersecurity problems, inhibit free speech and hurt innovation. The bill would allow the DOJ to seek court orders requiring online advertising networks and payment processors to stop doing business with foreign websites accused of infringing copyrights. The DOJ could also seek court orders requiring search engines to stop linking to the accused sites, and it would allow private copyright owners to seek court orders against ad networks and payment processors.

But Smith, the bill’s sponsor, said SOPA meets the White House requirements. He welcomed the announcement that “the White House will support legislation to combat online piracy that protects free speech, the Internet and America’s intellectual property,” he said. “That’s precisely what the Stop Online Piracy Act does.”

SOPA is targeted at illegal activity not protected under free speech rights, he said. Critics have said the blocking of websites could lead to the censorship of protected speech on parts of the sites that are blocked.

In addition, SOPA helps innovation, Smith said. “The problem of online piracy discourages innovation because it steals the products and profits that rightly belong to American innovators,” he said. “Lawful and legitimate companies should not have to compete with foreign thieves that steal their intellectual property.”

Opponents of SOPA, including Public Knowledge and NetCoalition, also applauded the White House statement.

The White House statement highlighted its “serious concerns” with SOPA and PIPA, said Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition. “We appreciate the administration’s recognition that our ability to innovate, invest and grow the economy is dependent upon keeping the Internet open and free.”

Microsoft Corp. said it has sued Chinese electronics retailer Shanghai Gome Electrical Appliances Co. and a Beijing computer market over alleged software copyright infringement. Microsoft filed the lawsuits in Shanghai Huangpu District People’s Court and Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court, it said in a statement.

The Obama administration said that it strongly opposed central elements of two Congressional efforts to enforce copyrights on the Internet, all but killing the current versions of legislation that has divided both political parties and pitted Hollywood against Silicon Valley. The comments by the administration’s chief technology officials, posted on a White House blog, came as growing opposition to the legislation had already led sponsors of the bills to reconsider a measure that would force Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that offer or link to copyrighted material.

Google, Yahoo, Facebook and several other large web companies today joined a growing chorus of strong opposition to proposed legislation that aims to curb online IP and copyright theft by foreign sites.

The opponents contend that the two proposed laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, would result in Internet censorship. Critics say both bills are overly broad, and mostly serve the interests of Hollywood and the music industry.

SOPA, currently winding its way through the US House of Representatives, has drawn the most ire because it is widely seen as the most draconian and caters more to the entertainment industry than its US Senate counterpart.

In a letter sent to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Google, Yahoo and others expressed concern over the legislation’s “new uncertain liabilities” and “private rights of action”.

Curbing online freedom

While the companies agree that new enforcement tools are needed to combat rogue websites dedicated to copyright infringement and counterfeiting, they say proposed bills go too far.

“We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity,” the letter read. “We cannot support these bills as written and ask that you consider more targeted ways to combat foreign ‘rogue’ websites.”

Both bills aim to combat what their supporters say are rogue websites based outside the US that focus on the illegal sale of copyrighted content and counterfeit goods such as prescription drugs.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) currently allows copyright owners and IP owners to ask sites like YouTube, Facebook or eBay to take down content that are believed to violate copyright and IP protection laws.

DMCA does not hold ISPs directly responsible for the content on their networks. Both the Protect IP Act and SOPA would hold them directly responsible for hosting such content on their sites.

The SOPA legislation would also allow copyright holders and IP owners to ask payment processing companies such as MasterCard and PayPal, as well as advertising networks, to terminate their services to any site. ISPs that comply with the requests would receive full immunity under SOPA. Companies that don’t comply with the requests could face legal action from copyright and IP holders.

Some opponents say that the SOPA law is worded in a way that would allow content owners to shut down websites that host even one page of illegal content. For instance, an auction website such as eBay would theoretically be in violation of SOPA if someone listed a counterfeit item for sale.

No safe harbour?

Opponents are concerned that the private right of action allowed under the bill undermines Safe Harbor provisions in DMCA. They also worry the innovation that created sites like YouTube would be stifled.

At a news conference tday, Computers and Communications Industry Association officials said SOPA poses a cybersecurity threat and that it would require ISPs to interfere with secure connections between a users and websites.

“[SOPA] may adversely affect every company doing business online, from Sears to Twitter. In effect it will impose and privatise a national censorship regime,” the trade association said in a statement.

Growing opposition to SOPA is not surprising said Corryne McSherry, intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The groups that drafted this bill did so without input from the numerous communities it would affect, but they couldn’t keep it under wraps forever,” she said.

“As for complaints that the current system doesn’t work, one has to wonder when big media is going to learn that the only successful response to the problem of online infringement is to offer a better alternative,” she said.

Supporters of the bills, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Pfizer and dozens of trade groups, insist that the measures target only egregious offenders based outside the US. The supporters insist that the concerns of opponents are overstated and misdirected.